powershell copy data from csv to postgres - postgresql

Question

hitting an issue where you hopefully can help me with:
I want to import a csv file to postgres with powershell. For this have written following code:
$ConnectionString = "Driver={PostgreSQL UNICODE(x64)};Server=$SQLServer;Port=$SLQPort;Database=$SQLDB;Uid=$SQLUser;Pwd=$SQLPass;"
$connection = New-Object System.Data.ODBC.ODBCConnection
$connection.ConnectionString = $ConnectionString
$connection.Open()
$query= "copy sensorhistory from 'C:\Powershell_Scripts\Postgres\Eurogate\data\export.csv' Delimiter ',' csv header;"
$DBCmd = $connection.CreateCommand();
$DBCmd.CommandText = $query
$DBCmd.ExecuteNonQuery() | Out-Null
$DBCmd.ExecuteReader();
But I am getting the error "No such file or directory"
the link is correct and already made changes to allow access to everybody, but still not working.
Any help is welcome

Answer 1

You're pointing to the wrong file system!
From the $SQLServer argument in the connection string, it appears that Postgres might be hosted on a remote machine.
When encountering a file path like C:\[...]\export.csv in a query, the database engine is going to ask the operating system to open the corresponding file, and the operating system goes "C:\? That's a local drive, let me find that file for you" - and fails to locate the file because you actually meant the C:\ drive on your computer.
Two ways to fix this:
1. Pass a network path in the query:
Update the query so the file path explicitly points to a file share on a different machine:
$query = "copy sensorhistory from '\\ClientComputer01\ShareName\path\to\data\export.csv' Delimiter ',' csv header;"
2. Copy the file to the server that hosts Postgres
Of course, opening the file from the local filesystem wouldn't fail if the file also existed there. Assuming WinRM is configured in the environment and you have admin access on the DB server, copy the file ahead of time:
$remoteSession = New-PSSession -ComputerName $SQLServer
Copy-Item C:\Powershell_Scripts\Postgres\Eurogate\data\export.csv -Destination C:\Powershell_Scripts\Postgres\Eurogate\data\ -ToSession $remoteSession
Alternatively, copy the file over SMB if you have write access to a file share:
Copy-Item C:\Powershell_Scripts\Postgres\Eurogate\data\export.csv \\$SQLServer\ShareName\path\to\data\
After which the DB engine will be able to open the new local copy of the file and you can keep the local file path in the query.